Fort Lauderdale floodplain manager: new FEMA maps put 63.7% of city in high-risk flood zone

Mark Haggerty, Fort Lauderdale's floodplain manager, told the Infrastructure Task Force that FEMA's remapping, effective July 31, 2024, increased the city's special flood hazard area from about 11,311 acres in 2014 to roughly 14,800 acres, placing about 63.7% of the city in a high-risk flood zone and bringing roughly 13,853 structures into the special flood hazard area.

Haggerty said the maps are part of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) process that typically revises flood insurance rate maps every 10 years. He said the remap affects development standards, mortgage-related flood insurance requirements and eligibility for federal grants and disaster assistance. He also described the Community Rating System (CRS), noting Fort Lauderdale is currently a class 7 community (about a 15% insurance premium discount) and city staff aim to use a consultant to pursue improvements that could raise the discount to class 5 (25%) or higher.

Why it matters: being in the NFIP preserves access to federal infrastructure grants and post-disaster aid; remapped properties that fall into a special flood hazard area may be required by lenders to carry flood insurance. Haggerty told the task force that the remap is not purely historical: FEMA uses engineering hydrology/hydraulics, lidar, and historical flooding data to determine base flood elevations, and appeals require technical documentation such as elevation certificates or hydrologic studies.

Members asked why base flood elevations vary across neighborhoods. Haggerty said the mapping process divides the city into subbasins and that factors such as local topography, proximity to water bodies and hydrologic modeling produce different base flood elevations across the city. He said appeals are most often filed by counties and private developers because changes can affect construction elevation requirements and project costs.

On numbers and insurance impacts, Haggerty gave the following figures: the city has approximately 34,764 NFIP policies covering about $9 billion in property; annual premiums total roughly $16 million; the program's CRS discount currently saves about $2.5 million annually at the 15% level; the NFIP has structural limitations and federal debt that complicate program reform. He noted the NFIP's claim-payment data lag and that the statistics he cited were current through 2022 and do not include the April 2023 floods.

Members pressed Haggerty on policy trade-offs. He said achieving larger CRS discounts can require more stringent open-space rules or building regulations, which can affect development and private property rights; the consultant the city expects to hire will analyze options and recommend which credits and code changes would be feasible without unduly harming development.

Haggerty also explained local rules for floodproofing and critical facilities: floodproofing measures are permitted for commercial and mixed-use buildings but not for residential structures; the city instituted annual inspections for floodproofed commercial buildings to ensure required protections are maintained. He said the local building code requires critical facilities to be built higher than FEMA's baseline (the task force heard that, as of December 2023 locally, critical facilities may require roughly three feet above the base flood elevation in parts of the city).

The task force asked for follow-up. Members volunteered to review the consultant solicitation and requested copies of the solicitation and the consultant's scope when available. Haggerty said the consultant contract is in a budget amendment on the commission's consent agenda; if approved the contract will be public and staff will provide task force members the solicitation documents and subsequent updates. He also offered to provide letter-of-determination checks for individual addresses and to return for updates.

The presentation closed with the task force thanking Haggerty and noting that the CIP financial report had been deferred and that a water-break report will be provided next month.

Quote: "The preliminary maps came out in 2019 and the latest maps went effective 07/31/2024," Haggerty said. "As a result, 63.7% of the city is now in the special flood hazard area."